Romantic poetry for preschoolers

Wild Thing's latest obsession is pirates. Tonight at dinner, he made the following request:

"Daddy, can you tell me a story about the buccaneer who shot the bird? Not about the time he shot the bird--a different story."

I was at something of a loss. Buccaneers shooting birds? I thought he'd perhaps picked something up from the cover of one of the various eighteenth-century travel narratives I have lying around the house. Then it dawned on me ...

About two weeks ago, at something of a loss when asked for a story to tell him, I for some reason offered him summary version of Coleridge's "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner." This is what he gets for having an English professor for a father. I usually assume these things are like water off a duck's back, but apparently this one stuck with him. I told him that, given the nature of the Mariner's story, there could be no other stories about him, but that I'd happily tell him a story about a different buccaneer. Happily, this proved to be an acceptable alternative.